Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - The Heated Rivalry Episode

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00:00:51.340 Hey all, Jo here, and you are listening to Under the Influence.

00:00:54.860 Yes. There are three things that the women in my life are talking about right now. We're talking 1.00

00:01:01.260 about perimenopause, ice, and heated rivalry. And that's it. Those three things are our entire

00:01:09.820 personalities right now. I can't believe I am so late to the game in making a podcast or two

00:01:17.760 podcast episodes about heated rivalry. But you know what? I'm here now, and that is all that

00:01:23.280 matters. It took me a beat. It took me a beat to get through all the episodes because it is

00:01:28.300 something that I have to watch on my own. I have to watch it on my own when my house is empty,

00:01:33.080 because let's be honest, it's pretty porny. It's pretty porny. It is not a show that I want to

00:01:41.040 watch with my husband, and I definitely can't have my kids around. So it's taken me a little

00:01:45.120 while to get through all the episodes, but I'm there. I'm finally there, and I'm ready to get

00:01:49.580 into all of it. All of it. I have so many questions. I have so many questions. I have

00:01:54.900 so many thoughts. I am so curious about why this show that essentially looks like a low budget

00:02:01.500 CW teen drama. It does. Let's be honest about that. It truly does. No shade. But but that is

00:02:08.500 the truth. Why it has captured the hearts and minds of American women during this particular

00:02:16.380 timeline. To talk about all of it today with me, I have a very smart lady coming on. Sarah Wendell 1.00

00:02:22.560 is one of the co-founders of the website Smart Bitches Trashy Books. Yeah. Yeah. If you have not 1.00

00:02:30.980 followed them, which I have for more than a decade, go and read everything that they've ever

00:02:36.260 written. Because I've got to tell you, Smart Bitches Trashy Books was one of the first media 1.00

00:02:41.580 platforms to take romance seriously. And now, look, we've got romant to see everywhere. We've 1.00

00:02:47.200 got romance everywhere. But Sarah has been doing this for a long time, and she knows her shit. 1.00

00:02:52.280 Sarah is hilarious. She's a little spicy. And we're getting into it. Are you team Hollander? 1.00

00:02:58.040 Are you team Ilya? And we're going to get into all of it today. This episode is probably not

00:03:04.280 that safe to listen to around children. So, uh, earmuffs, people. Earmuffs.

00:03:11.580 Sarah. Hello, Jo. Thank you so much for having me.

00:03:19.840 Oh, my God. Thank you so much for offering yourself up as tribute.

00:03:24.360 You are the person that I wanted to talk about this with the most. So thank you.

00:03:27.760 You are also the person that I want to talk about this with the most. I mean,

00:03:32.540 I also I can't stop thinking about this. No woman that I know that's watched it can stop

00:03:40.120 thinking about this. It comes up pretty quickly. It's now coming up during mom night outs and

00:03:49.420 girls nights out before perimenopause, which is saying a lot. Yep. It is a major, major topic.

00:03:56.780 It is up there with looking at what's happening in the world, like a world topic. This has become

00:04:03.740 a world topic. It's become a world topic. It's become a global phenomenon. And who who would

00:04:10.200 have thunk it? I mean, especially given the state of TV right now. I didn't think this was going to

00:04:15.540 become a thing. This show is so Canadian and the show could not have been made in the United States

00:04:21.720 under any circumstances. Oh, talk to me about that. Why do you think that? Oh, I am absolutely

00:04:27.200 secure in my knowledge. So the director of the show is a man named Jacob Tierney. He adapted it.

00:04:33.820 He wrote it. He directed it. He is a deeply talented person. And he comes from comedy,

00:04:39.080 which is one of the reasons why the timing in this show is so good. He has two shows on Hulu,

00:04:44.060 Letterkenny and Shorzy. They are both hockey adjacent. Shorzy is actually about a hockey team.

00:04:49.360 And he's brilliant. He's a great writer and he's a great director. This is a specifically Canadian

00:04:55.220 in production because he's the one who optioned it and adapted it. Then he got a grant. Do you

00:05:01.440 know about the Canada Media Fund? No, I know nothing about Canada. I should know more about

00:05:08.320 Canada. I'd love to live there. Tell me everything. Well, the Canadian Media Fund is a fund literally

00:05:17.760 for Canadians to be more competitive in the media landscape. Do you remember Carly Rae Jepsen's

00:05:24.840 Call Me Maybe. Yes. That video, that video was a Canadian media funded project. So Heated Rivalry

00:05:33.680 and Call Me Maybe have like a common lineage, which is wild. You know what? No, that tracks for

00:05:38.820 me. That completely tracks. I believe that. Yes. So, for example, this fund is like 300 plus

00:05:46.300 million dollars annually, and they give it to people in Canada to make projects for them to

00:05:52.940 stay competitive because, you know, their neighbor to the South, we are a little loud and, you know,

00:05:59.800 we we take up a lot of room in the media landscape. And so this is a way for them to stay competitive.

00:06:04.320 This is similar to, for example, French laws that demand that a certain number of songs

00:06:11.580 be in French in an hour. So funding for the Canadian government for this show, I actually

00:06:18.780 looked it up because it's a government funded project. They're going to tell you what the

00:06:21.980 funding was it was 3.136 million canadian which is about 2.25 million usd oh my god and i'm saying

00:06:31.180 oh my god because that's not a very big budget it is not and that's just the connect the canadian

00:06:36.020 part jacob tierney's uh production company also funded part of the show and so the the estimated

00:06:43.420 budget i've seen figures between 10 and 12 million canadian which is like maybe eight to nine u.s

00:06:49.600 The dollar is much stronger against the Canadian dollar right now.

00:06:52.960 This show is dirt cheap to make.

00:06:54.500 HBO optioned it, I think, for like $600,000 an episode.

00:06:57.880 But if you think about it, if this had been a Hollywood production and it had Hollywood

00:07:01.760 money behind it, then you would have Hollywood all over it.

00:07:04.540 You would not have two unknown actors.

00:07:06.940 You would have probably Glenn Powell or the hockey equivalent of Glenn Powell.

00:07:11.160 There would be some sort of tentpole function with this show.

00:07:14.440 It would not be what it was because of the involvement of so many investors.

00:07:18.680 with Jacob Tierney's company and the Canadian Media Fund.

00:07:21.760 This was a much more nimble production, and he did it very cheaply.

00:07:25.000 The cameras that they used, I was reading about this,

00:07:27.820 they used really expensive cameras because they were filming for a month

00:07:32.100 and they had no time to keep doing stuff.

00:07:36.000 Oh, wow. That's interesting.

00:07:37.840 And if you think about it, there's only one restaurant scene.

00:07:40.200 Everything is in hotel rooms.

00:07:42.640 There's been interviews with the wardrobe supervisor and all that.

00:07:46.180 Oh, she did a lot of vintage stores, right?

00:07:47.980 Yes. Yeah. Because they had like no budget. This was a very lean and economical production, which I think makes it so much more interesting because we are so used to media that is built around some major form of IP or is super, super Indian miserable. And this is neither.

00:08:05.360 no it's it's actually i love knowing this it's really a happy medium and i will say watching

00:08:12.020 heated rivalry is an enjoyable experience and in the introduction i actually compare it it almost 0.51

00:08:17.580 feels like watching a cw teen drama yeah yeah yeah it's very enjoyable same amount of nipples 0.92

00:08:24.900 maybe more nipples although not more nipples than gossip girl necessarily uh no no there was there 0.98

00:08:30.120 was a lot of a lot of chuck bass nipple in gossip girl and but i think about american television a 0.98

00:08:37.480 lot we're still in the process of developing and pitching so many of my books for tv shows

00:08:42.580 which is a terrible process because the american production system is awful you have to attach

00:08:49.580 a celebrity at the outset they're always they're always difficult they're difficult and expensive

00:08:54.860 and I loved watching Heated Rivalry because I don't need to watch a celebrity to enjoy a show.

00:09:01.800 I love a good character actor. I love a good unknown. And American production companies

00:09:06.660 never want to take that kind of risk. No. And there's a lot of money behind actors who I think

00:09:13.200 are actors playing themselves in that role. Exactly. Right. There's the celebrity of the

00:09:20.220 actor comes before the performance. And then there are actors who disappear into the performance

00:09:24.440 where you think, wow, I can't believe that was the same guy. That was the same guy? How is that

00:09:27.320 the same guy? That is a different type of acting. And I think American media production values the

00:09:33.160 former because they want to bank on that celebrity. It also means they have to do less marketing

00:09:36.840 because the celebrity is going to bring their audience and they don't have to work too hard.

00:09:40.640 Right. But I mean, to be honest, I will say I've seen so many celebrity shows that have had

00:09:46.560 massive budgets where the American celebrities have gotten so much money that have just died

00:09:51.280 in the water these days and heated rivalry has become i think the most popular show in the world

00:09:58.020 right now just through word of mouth yep word of mouth and different groups of people finding it

00:10:04.720 and telling everybody in their fandom so like this was originally going to appeal to romance fans

00:10:09.720 right and right and i don't even know if they thought in the beginning that it would appeal

00:10:15.480 to that many people outside of the queer community i mean it didn't even get picked up by hbo until

00:10:20.820 like weeks before the premiere. I think it was like late November that it was announced. And I

00:10:25.100 said to one of my, I think it was Amanda who I said this to my frequent co-host, you know, yes,

00:10:30.780 it's going to be on Crave in Canada, which is their sort of Hulu. And I said, it's going to

00:10:35.820 get picked up in the States. It'll probably be picked up by Hulu because they have Jacob Tierney's

00:10:39.720 other shows, but someone will buy this eventually. I did not expect it to be HBO. I don't think HBO

00:10:45.100 expected what they got. And I did not expect it to reach so many other fandoms so quickly.

00:10:50.820 it's been fast it's been really fast but when when was it released it was not that long ago

00:10:55.340 i think it was like two weeks before christmas or like so yeah i mean time means nothing to me

00:11:01.100 at this point i'm like you could tell me it was nine months ago but i know that it was right

00:11:05.600 before the christmas yeah it was november 28th basically jacob tyranny took care of people

00:11:10.940 between thanksgiving and that weird week after christmas gave us all something to do this was

00:11:15.140 much better than say any other december gossip like the year we were all talking about how

00:11:20.420 Hilaria Baldwin fakes her accent this was a much better holiday obsession I'm very grateful oh yeah

00:11:25.920 no I'm so grateful also by the way I and I don't like to talk about other women's faces but I saw

00:11:31.140 Hilaria Baldwin on the social media the other day and I don't recognize her she's done something

00:11:35.600 something is different to look I mean it's really it's internet face it's like internet face with

00:11:41.440 Mar-a-Lago face the thing that we were talking about earlier before we got on the microphone 0.61

00:11:45.480 that everyone's face is as smooth as a baby seal's butt and yes yeah I didn't even know it was her

00:11:51.140 one of my most popular comments on reddit was a post of a celebrity and I was like you can't fool

00:12:00.020 me that's this other person mixed with this with this other person with the like this is Heidi

00:12:06.160 Montag mixed with Christina Aguilera that's not Lindsay Lohan and yet they all look the same

00:12:10.720 everyone looks the same now i'm so bored by it i'm just bored by it i want people to have real

00:12:16.740 faces again i also and this is a demand that i have you remember i was listening to your show 0.79

00:12:22.060 and you were talking about like am i am i the asshole am i the weird one and i spend a lot of 0.78

00:12:26.400 time in my life like um have you ever seen uh how to train your dragon oh yeah of course i have 0.91

00:12:31.100 three children it's one of my favorites it was like the movie of my kid's childhood and there's

00:12:35.860 a scene where hiccup shoots down a light fury and he's the misfit he's the outcast and he turns

00:12:40.440 around. He's like, did anybody see that? And I feel like that with culture all the time. Is anyone

00:12:44.600 seeing what I am seeing here? And we need to be able to talk about plastic surgery and what it

00:12:49.560 means and what it does without immediately being jumped on for you're criticizing a woman's

00:12:55.060 appearance. I don't give a flying crap what you do, but please don't lie to me and tell me something 0.94

00:12:59.880 wasn't done. Like I had plastic surgery last month. It's fine, y'all. This is your house. Do 0.98

00:13:05.600 whatever you want to it, but why are you doing it? What's the reason for it? Is this a demonstration

00:13:10.860 of conformity and compliance? Because that's what that one face is. It's confirmation and conformity

00:13:17.760 to one particular appearance. Okay, why? We need to be able to talk about the why. I don't care

00:13:22.360 that you do it, but why? Why are you doing it? Exactly. Exactly. Oh my God. That is a whole

00:13:27.180 other episode. And right now we are talking about hockey smut. That is our goal today. Hockey smut.

00:13:31.540 So you wanted to ask me, why is it so sexy and why is it so popular? Why is it so popular?

00:13:35.280 Why can't we stop watching? It subverts patriarchy left, right and center, full stop. 0.81

00:13:39.900 Like, that's why. And if you think about it, even the question is informed by patriarchy.

00:13:48.240 No one ever asks, OK, but why was Mad Men so popular? Why was The Sopranos so popular?

00:13:53.120 Why did everybody love The Wire? But if you Google, and I've done this, there are scores

00:13:57.640 of articles about why is heated rivalry so popular? Why is Bridgerton so interesting?

00:14:03.300 And why do people love the Great British Bake Off?

00:14:05.460 And what do they all have in common? 0.93

00:14:07.540 They're feminine coded.

00:14:08.900 They are of interest to women and gay men.

00:14:12.140 And Jacob Tierney himself said in an interview, there's a general lack of interest in what

00:14:16.720 women find sexy.

00:14:18.940 There truly is.

00:14:19.800 And I'll give just another little peek into what's been going on with our TV stuff for

00:14:24.880 some of my books.

00:14:26.080 I will tell you, a lot of the American streamers and production companies are like, oh, no, 0.99

00:14:30.340 we already have a woman-centered show. 0.98

00:14:31.880 We don't need another one. 1.00

00:14:32.880 yes so we already have desperate housewives we don't need anything else we don't need anything

00:14:36.620 else we we already have a woman ensemble show and we don't we don't need everyone is lying to you

00:14:42.620 we heard that 10 times with that is embarrassing like i'm embarrassed i'm embarrassed by that

00:14:49.000 we should be i mean maybe i should pitch everyone is lying to you to crave crave call me come on i've

00:14:53.200 got we've got a show ready for you if you can get in touch with jacob tierney be like my guy

00:14:56.340 got a project for you sir i mean now i'm gonna go gentle stalk jacob tierney so thanks for that

00:15:02.140 listen don't watch letter kenny or shorzy with your kids around letter kenny i describe as if i

00:15:07.400 want as if i can watch heated rivalry with my kids around i listened to a podcaster um do you ever

00:15:12.260 listen to vibe check no one of the hosts of vibe check zach stafford was like yeah so i watched it

00:15:17.500 on a plane first time someone was next to him and they were just like what and the second time it

00:15:22.980 was another gay man and so they just watched it together listening to him talk about this 0.76

00:15:26.960 i'm turning red right now at the idea of seeing someone watch that on a plane 0.68

00:15:30.680 wow people on screens have sex on planes on movies many times this is this is different

00:15:36.960 thing it's different this is different no it's taken me so long to finish it because it has to

00:15:44.120 be done during the day when no one else is home oh yes it is it is a show where you're going to

00:15:49.940 either watch it in a bar with people and all be cool with it which i think is incredible are you

00:15:53.680 gonna be by yourself in your little pod yes this is this is a very specific type of viewing letter

00:15:59.740 Kenny and Shorzy are also like that. Letter Kenny I describe as deeply wholesome and extremely

00:16:03.960 profane. Great. I mean, which is, you know, which is a good combo. That is a great, that's, that's

00:16:09.340 one of my favorite combos. You know, we talk about this all the time. I'm like, I, I love

00:16:14.140 delicious trash. Oh God. Yes. Yes. I consider all of my books delicious trash in the best way. 0.97

00:16:20.420 I built my whole job on talking about romance novels, which people are already starting to

00:16:25.920 take seriously, but 20 years ago, not so much. I know. I said that in my intro to you. I said that

00:16:30.820 I've said that you were you were the first girl. You're a pioneer. You're the Oregon trail of this.

00:16:35.680 Thank you. I appreciate that. I love being able to look at a thing that I love critically as my job,

00:16:41.300 but also I will never stop being fascinated by the very specific things that are considered trash

00:16:48.440 that people love. Like one of my favorite podcasts is a show called. Oh, they just changed it, but it

00:16:53.780 used to be the mess mess world mess world podcast it's two okay you would you oh okay i'm really

00:17:00.420 sorry you're gonna lose a lot of time because it's amazing and you're gonna love it it's just

00:17:03.280 tofino from the review of beauty or no her show is now her her substack is now flesh world

00:17:08.360 patrick who does fashion commentary and they look at fashion and the beauty industry and

00:17:13.500 culturally break down what is actually happening it's the same thing that i do with romance fiction

00:17:17.980 and i could just i could just hug the show i would hug the mp3s if i could i love them so much

00:17:23.320 I'm so here for this. All right. Great. No, I love it. I love it. Yeah. I think that you are correct. I think that we do not have many television shows that tap into what women want.

00:17:37.000 nope um what kinds of romance we want what kinds of relationships we want to see yes that you know

00:17:46.760 there's a lot of complications in the relationships in heated rivalry but you know what we don't see 0.92

00:17:53.520 we don't see men being dicks to women never no absolutely not it's just it's it's refreshing

00:18:00.040 to to to be in that world and i say this to to friends a lot because i'm pretty liberal with 0.89

00:18:05.920 what I let my very young children watch on television. I was the same and my kids turned

00:18:11.540 out fine. So you're going to be all right. I'm not I'm not at all worried about it. You know,

00:18:15.940 they they see I mean, because I have a dinosaur kid there, they've seen all the Jurassic Parks.

00:18:21.260 OK, and then I've got a space kid. So they've seen all the Star Wars. They've seen this kind

00:18:24.900 of faux fake violence. But something I do not let them ever see is violence against women or

00:18:32.800 derogatory content against women. I think that is so much more damaging than any of the dinosaur

00:18:40.380 biting the guy's head off. I mean, there is no shortage of movies from the 80s and 90s that you

00:18:46.020 could revisit that are ineligible now because of that rule. I mean, there's like all the movies I

00:18:50.740 grew up watching. No, that is not part of it. And I think that's really important about heated

00:18:55.060 heated rivalry specifically. Because look at the predominant type of masculinity we are seeing in

00:19:03.260 the world around us right now. We are watching insecure, fragile bullies that are propped up by

00:19:10.460 money and fascism. And then you look at the ways that masculinity are portrayed in the show. And

00:19:17.640 I think it's a very large signal that we are culturally starving for tenderness and acceptance.

00:19:25.060 And that is what this show is giving us.

00:19:28.240 Yes, yes, and yes.

00:19:31.460 All right, let's take a quick break.

00:19:32.620 And when we get back, I want to talk a little bit about the storyline and the arc of the show

00:19:39.720 and what they've done to really just draw us in and hook us

00:19:43.720 because the way they've done the narrative is a little bit unconventional.

00:19:47.800 you matched on hinge you're vibing then her energy completely changes what do you do

00:19:58.360 i'm raven smith and i wrote and read a real love story about this exact sitch listen to the free

00:20:04.540 audiobook now before you knew what a stock was you traded snacks cards turns you knew what

00:20:12.320 something was worth because you felt it. That instinct to trade didn't disappear. It just grew

00:20:18.280 up. TD Easy Trade taps into that instinct so you can build something real for the future with no

00:20:24.700 minimums, no monthly fees, and 100 free trades. You already got this because you are made to trade

00:20:31.800 And TD Easy Trade is made to help. Download it now.

00:20:39.620 Okay, we're back.

00:20:41.460 I really like the pacing, the multi-year arc that they have going on in Heated Rivalry,

00:20:47.700 because I like seeing these characters develop not over a single season, but over years, right?

00:20:54.900 Yes. And that's from the book.

00:20:56.860 The book is the story of their relationship over, you know, 9, 10 years.

00:21:01.280 What I find extraordinary about the show is that they stuck a whole other book in episode three.

00:21:06.800 Like they dropped one and two and everyone was hooked.

00:21:09.820 And then episode three was like this whole other book that was adapted into one episode.

00:21:13.440 And I'm like, wow, this is incredible.

00:21:15.700 So, yeah, I didn't know.

00:21:16.920 I actually did not know that that was where that episode came from.

00:21:21.220 For me, it was like a bottle episode, you know, like where you go away from the main characters or you do a whole thing of flashbacks.

00:21:27.880 I loved that episode.

00:21:28.920 I will tell you, that was I watched the first two episodes and I was into it.

00:21:33.880 But that was the first episode where I was like, I love this.

00:21:37.480 Yep.

00:21:38.180 It was like a it's sort of like a in the sequence of the show.

00:21:43.640 So let me back up and explain romance in case anyone is not familiar with the idea of the

00:21:48.160 romance genre.

00:21:49.180 Romance is courtship narratives. 0.99

00:21:50.600 And the rule is there will be a happy ending.

00:21:53.120 If it's not a happy ending, then it's not romance.

00:21:56.560 It's a very simple rule.

00:21:58.380 And one of the fascinating things about the romance genre is how many former and current

00:22:01.900 lawyers write it because there is a structure that you are following. 0.99

00:22:05.700 Oh, shut up. 0.99

00:22:06.100 I didn't know this. 1.00

00:22:07.080 Oh, my gosh.

00:22:07.820 We have so many attorneys, so many.

00:22:09.880 And my theory is because when you go to law school, you learn a structure of writing in

00:22:14.480 a language.

00:22:15.540 And if you are going to file a brief, your brief has to follow rules like it has to do

00:22:19.440 this part here and that part there.

00:22:20.900 But right in the middle, you can make whatever argument you want.

00:22:23.040 That's your case.

00:22:23.600 But you have to follow the structure.

00:22:25.980 And genre fiction is the same.

00:22:27.680 mysteries are the same. Fantasy novels are the same. Romance is the same. There's a structure.

00:22:32.880 And so this story is fitting the entire structure of a book into six episodes. But with episode three,

00:22:41.240 which is, I think, very much a bottle episode, I think the adaptation and the way it was structured

00:22:46.680 gave the audience a taste of what they would ultimately want for Shane and Ilya. Now,

00:22:52.160 if you're a romance fan, you know how this ends. If you read the book, you know how it ends. And

00:22:55.260 If you know that it is a faithful adaption of a romance novel, you know that they will get there.

00:22:59.300 But it's a long way off when that story, when the third episode happens.

00:23:04.140 So it's like a taste of this is where we're going in a different way.

00:23:10.240 Yeah, I loved, I loved, loved the relationship in the third episode.

00:23:14.000 And then you get to the top of the mountain in episode five where you're like, oh my God.

00:23:21.140 Yep.

00:23:21.440 And what's fascinating is this book starts with trips to Bontown.

00:23:26.040 The intimacy is not a problem in the physical sense, but the emotional intimacy takes them a really long time to get to.

00:23:33.340 Well, and I think that that's also why it's intriguing to a lot of women, particularly, let's say, women of a certain age, because we dealt with so much male emotional intimacy stuntedness.

00:23:47.480 Yes, we are.

00:23:48.980 For a long time.

00:23:49.680 So expected to do emotional caretaking of men at all times, regardless of age and our relationship to them.

00:23:57.900 Their emotions are our job.

00:24:01.340 Which I don't want that job.

00:24:02.860 No, thanks.

00:24:03.680 No, I don't want that.

00:24:04.220 I don't have that job anymore.

00:24:05.860 I mean, I just refuse.

00:24:08.000 I refuse to be the sole, sole, sole person in charge of that job now. 1.00

00:24:14.640 I don't want any woman to have to deal with that with my own son. 0.98

00:24:18.920 I think about it all the time. But, you know, when we watch Hollander and Ilya on the screen,

00:24:24.620 they are very emotionally immature, but they're also young men. Yes, they are very young. I mean,

00:24:29.000 they try to make Shane look real, real young with some real bad bangs in early episodes.

00:24:33.100 Those bangs are so rough. It's very those are some tragic youth bangs. And all I had those.

00:24:39.320 I had those in my youth as well. I can relate. It's yes, you're watching the emotional maturity

00:24:44.540 of two people who do not have, in a rom-com, for example, there would be a woman in the story

00:24:53.480 managing their emotions or help. It would be her job to pivot them into emotional maturity.

00:25:00.700 Well, she's not there. There's nobody there to do that.

00:25:02.900 There's nobody there. There's nobody there to do it. Yeah, exactly.

00:25:05.280 And they have to do the emotional heavy lifting of figuring out what they're doing

00:25:09.460 with themselves. And this is very much a coming of age story. Like one of the major

00:25:13.740 storylines that is a source of conflict is that Shane has to, for the first time, say,

00:25:23.560 I'm diverging from the path that was laid out for me. And he has so much working against him

00:25:31.400 culturally. He is a Canadian hockey star. And he also, when I was recording an episode about this

00:25:40.380 with Candy, who is the co-founder of Smart Bitches. And also she's Asian. She said, listen,

00:25:44.820 anyone who thinks that it's easy to do that has clearly never had an Asian mom. 1.00

00:25:49.740 Right. And not only that, even if even if his mother weren't Asian, which in the book she is, 0.93

00:25:54.400 she is his manager. She is his deal broker. She is the one who is like sees his career

00:25:59.560 laid out. And he has to stand up to that and say, I'm going to do something different.

00:26:05.080 That's terrifying. And that's a huge thing when people I call it playing the FU card,

00:26:10.040 like, F you know, I'm doing it my way. I'm doing it how I want. And I'm no longer taking your

00:26:15.780 opinion under advisement at this time. And that's really hard for people to do, especially

00:26:19.800 to their parents when their parents are the business. Oh, absolutely. And in fact, it's

00:26:24.900 very, very interesting for me because I just kept thinking about influencer children.

00:26:29.320 Yes. Yes. Yes. Because it is. It's just it's a different kind of stage mom. Right. So and

00:26:38.640 And they're both they're both. I think they've done a really great job on the show of fleshing out all of the pressures that are on these professional sports stars from the outside.

00:26:49.680 And I've interviewed a lot of professional players who, you know, they make a lot of money. They make stupid money. 1.00

00:26:57.060 OK, I'm just going to say that professional sports stars and celebrities do make stupid money. 1.00

00:27:02.240 we should be paying teachers stupid money but but but like they do have so many family members 0.99

00:27:07.760 often depending on them that that money goes fast i remember watching a documentary about nfl players 0.97

00:27:13.440 and there was i remember this so clearly one of the former players was like you know how it used

00:27:18.700 to be that you would have a cell phone and that it was cheap to add a phone to your plan and you

00:27:24.340 could get like new phones on your account for like five dollars of course it's like i looked at my

00:27:28.160 cell phone bill and i was paying for hundreds of cell phones and i didn't know who the hell these

00:27:31.960 people were. Hundreds of cell phones on his bill every month. And it took years for him to look at

00:27:36.300 it, be like, oh, that where's my money going? Why is it gone? Why is it gone? Exactly. And I think

00:27:41.340 we see that see that really well. I will say that I think the storylines are fleshed, fleshed out

00:27:48.240 really, really well. In addition to these are some of the steamiest scenes that I've actually ever

00:27:55.000 seen on the screen outside of porn. This is one of the reasons why I think this show is so

00:27:59.480 extraordinary because we talked about the budget, which was not large. And yet they had so very

00:28:06.080 clear intimacy coordinator involvement in all of it. Like you can see how choreographed it was to

00:28:13.500 make it clear what is happening and nary a hog is spotted. Yeah, no, no, it's true. It's true. And

00:28:20.220 as a straight woman, I find it very sexy. Oh, yeah. Very, very. And I mean, every straight

00:28:26.940 woman that I talk to is like, yeah, all of this is hot. Yep, absolutely. And if you look at actual 0.99

00:28:33.040 statistics about who watches what types of porn, everybody's watching everything. You know,

00:28:40.200 there's this sort of idea that, you know, we are meant to be turned on in a very specific

00:28:44.340 heteronormative way. That's one of the downsides of the romance genre, in my opinion. We have a lot

00:28:48.980 of queer romance now, so much of it, but I don't think it's enough to fully recognize and represent

00:28:54.880 the sexuality and the sexual interests of its readership. Humans like lots of different sex.

00:29:00.180 And we are taught, especially women, a very heteronormative definition of what is supposed

00:29:06.380 to turn us on. And it's everything that that is not on that list. Well, exactly. Exactly. And I

00:29:14.080 will say so much of porn, I mean, I've talked to a lot of women about this, is made for the male 0.99

00:29:20.480 gaze yes so that heterosexual porn is almost disgusting for women oh yeah yeah she's an

00:29:27.300 accessory a lot of the time almost always an accessory yes not a protagonist not a protagonist 0.99

00:29:33.960 and so I mean look watching two very well-built men and also the foreplay is very good oh it's

00:29:42.840 just it's just sexy and it's it's intimate in a way that is very visceral and raw like the the

00:29:52.240 way that the actors embodied the sex scenes i i wrote a whole book about romance called beyond

00:29:57.600 heaving bosoms and i did a really interesting series of interviews one was was with lisa

00:30:02.980 who said that a good sex scene has to cause as many problems as it solves otherwise it's going

00:30:09.980 to end your tension. You're going to have no narrative tension after that. There's like so

00:30:13.940 many TV shows that jumped the shark when they finally banged. In a romance, if there's a sex 1.00

00:30:18.400 scene, it has to move the plot and cause problems as much as it solves any tension that led the

00:30:25.080 characters there. And that's what these sex scenes do. You can't take them out because they are part 1.00

00:30:31.720 of driving the story forward. And yes, they may have achieved climax and had a very satisfactory

00:30:37.160 experience. And that's very great because they, you know, they're very clearly attracted to each

00:30:41.740 other, but it still causes more problems. There's still a plot there. There's still a plot there.

00:30:47.460 Exactly. Exactly. Okay. Let's take one more quick break. And when we get back, I want to talk about

00:30:55.060 how we think this might actually push forward, you know, different kinds of romance media and

00:31:02.780 romance productions in both the queer and straight spaces. Oh, I hope so. 0.87

00:31:14.880 Saying how you feel out loud is terrifying, but that's what Hinge's new free audiobook,

00:31:20.240 No Ordinary Love, is all about. It's a collection of real love stories about five couples that met

00:31:27.980 on Hinge. The stories are written and read by Tembi Dinton Hurst, Nicola Dinan, Curtis Garner,

00:31:33.740 Raven Smith, and Rufy Thorpe. I, Hunter Harris, wrote and read the foreword. The audiobook's out

00:31:40.000 now. Give it a listen. Okay, we're back. What kind of impact do you think that heated rivalry

00:31:51.060 is going to have on the media and also maybe the real world? Because I've seen interviews

00:31:55.900 with the stars of the show saying that they have gotten messages from closeted professional sports

00:32:02.280 stars. I, of course, I'm sure everyone has been Googling, who are the out professional sports

00:32:07.480 stars? And there are pretty much none. You can count them on one hand, depending on how wide

00:32:13.240 you go in terms of sports. Depending on how wide you go in terms of sports and the definition of

00:32:19.540 professional. Yep. I would like to say the women have this in the bag. They've been marrying each

00:32:25.460 other for decades. And it's great. I mean, women, women, women who marry each other have have known

00:32:32.080 a lot. Yes. Very long time. OK, all the time, all the time. If if for some reason something tragic

00:32:38.600 were to happen to my beloved husband, who I adore, I'm never marrying another man. That's gross.

00:32:45.980 I have heard about so many women who are divorced and decide to invest in properties together and 1.00

00:32:51.020 live together because they know how to run a household. And it's good to have a partner, 1.00

00:32:54.340 but they're not missing anything by not being married anymore no and definitely definitely

00:32:59.440 by not being married to a man anymore i like i said i love my husband and i love my family but

00:33:05.060 i would never do that again there's a wonderful romance author named alicia rye who's also a

00:33:10.360 friend of mine and she um is now married with a beautiful little kid but a long time of you know

00:33:15.920 her social media was discussing dating and how much it sucks and at one point she said 0.98

00:33:19.660 i need people to understand that dick is plentiful and of low value and someone actually cross-stitched 1.00

00:33:26.260 that and gave it to her i would like that pillow do you want do you wish to receive sex from a man 0.99

00:33:34.120 this is not a hard difficult problem just not a hard problem that's hard uh no it's not it's not 0.99

00:33:40.480 a hard problem to solve it truly isn't i mean i would like to preface that with i would like sex

00:33:46.280 with a good man okay just give me give me some good men i want more good men in the world and

00:33:52.300 that is a one of my overarching goals at this point like how can we breed more good men to

00:33:59.660 replace like you were saying these these i mean the men running the world right now are so

00:34:06.060 emotionally insecure and vapid and i i don't even i don't have enough terrible adjectives for it but

00:34:14.680 good men can exist. I want good sex with good men. That sounds great. Let's cross-stitch that. 0.95

00:34:20.220 Good sex with good men, please. So what other impacts do you think that the success of Heated 0.59

00:34:29.320 Rivalry will have on the media and maybe even the cultural landscape? Well, Hollywood follows money,

00:34:37.440 right? And one of the things that I love, love, love about this show is that so much of what

00:34:44.040 heated rivalry represents is anathema to this entire administration. It's like bingo of people

00:34:49.780 they hate. We got immigrants. We got biracial people. We got mixed marriages. We got queerness.

00:34:54.580 I'm sorry. We have happy queer people, happy queer people being happy and queer. And we have people 0.98

00:34:59.300 having sex for pleasure and for self-actualization and people growing up and choosing their own lives

00:35:05.320 and being divergent from the heteronormative patriarchal expectations. Like this is everything

00:35:10.320 the administration hates. So if there's money in it, and I mean, let's be real, HBO has made

00:35:15.820 bank on its investment here. I signed back up and now I'm going to binge both

00:35:22.640 heated rivalry again and the pit. Yeah. I mean, you got subscribers. Listen,

00:35:27.620 one of the major mistakes that I think Disney made was forcing people to look at their

00:35:31.760 subscriptions after they fired Jimmy Kimmel. People were looking at their subscriptions that

00:35:36.840 The whole goal is for people not to look and see how much they're paying.

00:35:40.600 And so many people canceled it, terrified them.

00:35:45.060 And what that meant was people were like, oh, I'm actually paying for Disney Plus.

00:35:47.580 I never use it.

00:35:47.960 I'm going to cancel it.

00:35:48.520 Oh, well, I really don't like them.

00:35:49.620 I'm canceling this.

00:35:50.780 Big mistake.

00:35:51.980 It made me look at all of my subscriptions.

00:35:54.640 Exactly.

00:35:55.280 And this is like, oh, OK, now I so Disney made that massive cultural error and cost them

00:36:00.680 dearly, which is great.

00:36:02.080 But that also means that when you're looking at a new subscription, like adding one back

00:36:05.960 onto your budget now, you'd be like, is this worth it? Am I going to get something worth the amount

00:36:11.360 that I'm paying every month for this? And yes, yes, you are. Yes, you are. And, you know, I do

00:36:16.880 think that it bucks the trends that Hollywood has been following lately because, I mean, so

00:36:24.040 Charlotte Walsh likes to win my book about a woman running for Senate has been in development for 10 0.96

00:36:29.080 years now. Oh, dear God. I know. Well, Julia Roberts was attached. Amazon bought it. We had

00:36:34.860 eight episodes ready julia dropped out at the last minute blah blah blah um and then but it

00:36:40.040 was resurrected recently and then just died again i mean like a month ago because all of the streamers

00:36:48.040 all of the network said we don't want to touch politics or anything that seems political and

00:36:53.560 that is that's what we we've gotten a lot of with everyone is lying to you as well and i think that

00:36:59.420 they are squarely wrong. They're deeply wrong. I mean, look at everything in this show that is

00:37:05.260 counter to the predominant narrative in any cultural department, whether it's political or

00:37:09.360 just what what what is a man? What is masculine behavior? If if they're going to follow the money,

00:37:14.420 they're going to follow the money into more programming like this, please. I hope that would

00:37:17.440 be great. Like that would be fantastic. That would be great. But also think about how

00:37:22.220 the attention demand of this show you can't look away and i know that netflix i think has gone on

00:37:30.540 the record at this point as saying that they are designing shows that you watch with half your

00:37:34.360 attention because they expect to be the second screen in your in your living room they expect

00:37:38.880 you to be on your phone or looking at something in your hand and that the the exposition is handed

00:37:44.420 out by the ladle by the characters dialogue because they expect you to not be paying attention

00:37:49.040 contrast that with heated rivalry you can't not pay attention not only because it's visually

00:37:54.180 compelling but you're really going to miss something if you're not paying attention

00:37:57.660 they had a whole bars riffing it on the tv like it was a final game of a playoffs like that's

00:38:03.220 incredible right no i mean yes yes i love the group watching of it although i will like i said

00:38:10.000 i prefer to watch it alone just on my couch with my fuzzy blanket um so yeah but the fact that it's

00:38:18.540 Getting these group watches, bars, and restaurants is of all different kinds of people, too.

00:38:27.140 Yeah.

00:38:27.800 I mean, that is delicious.

00:38:30.840 One of the things that I also find very interesting is that the leads, who were pretty unknown in the States, have not openly discussed their own sexuality, right?

00:38:41.680 Yes.

00:38:42.020 Yes.

00:38:42.140 Yes. Yes. And I have a lot to say about that. But I want to be I want to be clear that like Jacob Tierney has gone on the record and been like, it's legal for me to ask them that when I'm doing an audition. It is illegal for me to ask them that. So, no, that's not going to be a consideration because it's against the law.

00:39:02.940 And, you know, when you said earlier, what does this mean for media? It's still important that this is Canadian and had no American influence in it. That's what makes it unique. I don't even know if American media could approach what this show did because of like all of the things you've said about the priorities of American media right now.

00:39:20.280 But in terms of the actors and their sexuality, I've seen some folks arguing that, you know, it's important that queer characters be played by queer actors. And yes, absolutely. More representation is great. And I say double yes to more marginalized actors getting jobs because one of the other great things about this show is it's not the same five people I've been seeing for the last six years.

00:39:40.620 oh my god if i saw if i had to see who i like reese witherspoon in another thing or nicole

00:39:45.860 kidman's you know baby seal butt forehead i would just die okay i mean there's a point where all the

00:39:54.560 actors start looking the same well they all they do all look the same i mean i have a hard time

00:40:00.360 sometimes telling them apart and i don't think it's me i don't think it's not you it's not you

00:40:04.740 but going back to the characters and i want to be very clear that i am not commenting

00:40:09.700 on their sexuality because it is none of my business and I do not care. It is still important

00:40:14.900 to have cishet actors playing gay characters because it still matters that they did. And that

00:40:21.900 sucks, but it matters that a cishet straight actor who is building a celebrity as a celebrity 0.99

00:40:28.400 version of masculinity is playing a gay character as an honest endeavor, not as a joke, not as a 0.99

00:40:34.200 sidekick, not as a, you know, a farce. It still matters that straight actors do that, which sucks. 0.99

00:40:41.600 But that's why I'm not really interested in the conversation about their sexuality, because I feel 0.98

00:40:46.900 like that's crossing a line into me being out of line and demanding too much information.

00:40:52.380 Yeah. I mean, I never feel out of line. I want all the information, but I do.

00:40:56.920 And I've actually like, I mean, much as, you know, I apologize earlier. I'm like,

00:41:01.500 we're not supposed to comment on women's faces i'm like no i actually want to back away from

00:41:05.740 from apologizing for that especially as a journalist i'm a curious person but i do think

00:41:12.040 that is important i do think that it's important for straight actors to feel comfortable playing

00:41:18.360 gay characters absolutely and for audiences to embrace gay actors playing straight characters

00:41:27.960 like anthony bridgerton i mean jonathan bailey i'll watch jonathan bailey do anything okay how

00:41:35.140 how how how does that happen genetically i like he he's so pretty how like i just look at him and

00:41:43.600 i'm like i don't usually get celebrity crushes but i'm just like i could just how how how are you

00:41:49.020 this beautiful what how he puts on glasses joe he wears i know i know can't handle it i love a man

00:41:57.200 in glasses my husband just got glasses and i think that we're having 70 more sex you know i don't i

00:42:03.400 don't find that surprising in the least but i also want to point out i mean i love discussing things

00:42:08.660 that are none of my business to be clear when it comes to the sexuality of the actors i remember

00:42:12.780 after heart stoppers on netflix became super duper duper popular and that became a scandal

00:42:17.340 that the actors playing the characters weren't were straight and weren't weren't queer and one

00:42:23.040 of them who was eight, he's 18 at the time, felt that he had to come out because of the level of

00:42:28.480 vitriol that he was experiencing. And that's terrible. Like, I feel awful about that. And it

00:42:34.600 wasn't like I wasn't even something I was thinking about. And I just knowing that that happened makes

00:42:38.080 me feel terrible. And, you know, makes me want to protect these people who are who are doing their

00:42:42.380 jobs and doing such a good job because look what they made that I love so much. Look what they made

00:42:46.620 that I love so much. And also so much of this is just people tearing other people down online and

00:42:55.740 on social media. And again, I mean, I don't want to get too political, but also the left eating the

00:43:01.840 left. Yes. This is something that I think about a lot. And one of the questions I see asked

00:43:07.300 frequently about this show is why is it so popular with women? And there are a lot of reasons, 0.58

00:43:12.240 but I think that one of the major ones is that we are trained from very young ages to judge each

00:43:19.280 other and ourselves to really harsh standards. Even if we consciously try, it's really hard to

00:43:23.920 undo that program that, you know, other women are the enemy and they are our competition for a 1.00

00:43:28.900 scarce resource. And we police each other and we police ourselves. And even in romance, like 1.00

00:43:33.740 heroines are judged much more harshly than heroes. And moreover, romance almost always includes the

00:43:40.460 heroine's point of view. Like sometimes it's a single point of view and it's mostly her and

00:43:43.720 sometimes it's alternating, but she's usually there. In this case, there is no room for any

00:43:49.280 kind of misogynist critique. There's no woman to judge. There's no woman narrator. There are two 0.99

00:43:56.480 important women of the show, but they're not the protagonists. And I think that one of the reasons

00:44:00.980 why women find that so compelling is that it erases and avoids all of the judgment that we

00:44:07.040 are used to dispensing even if we don't want to it's still part of our trained perspective do you

00:44:13.060 understand what i mean absolutely absolutely and i will say i also think that women enjoy this show

00:44:19.240 because we don't see any of our labor no screen no like it's like oh oh okay i just enjoy everyone

00:44:28.260 else doing all of the work yeah all of the all of the emotional heavy lifting done by someone

00:44:32.480 Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. You know, and this brings me to the last thing that I want to talk about before my kids run in here naked and screaming and sticky.

00:44:45.680 I am very curious, and I know you are, too, about someone becoming this famous and this much of a cultural phenomenon so quickly as the folks in this show have become.

00:44:56.980 And like we said, people dissecting everything about their lives and the toxicity of that.

00:45:02.600 What are you thinking about that?

00:45:04.160 Literally, this section of my notes is the toxicity of fandom.

00:45:07.120 I'm genuinely worried about Conor Story and Hudson Williams because I think that kind of fame that fast is a form of drama.

00:45:13.840 Especially now that you have people for whom doxing and stalking is like a hobby that they get praised for.

00:45:20.200 Like there was a whole Wall Street Journal, I think, focus on this woman named Club Chalamet who's obsessed with Timothee Chalamet. 1.00

00:45:25.700 And that is her whole shtick. 0.97

00:45:26.800 And she's now in The Wall Street Journal getting praises for it. And, you know, there are already obsessed fans with rumors about Adam Driver and Beyonce. And the level of parasocial relationship I find very alarming. And, for example, like, I would love to have two drinks and an appetizer with Ayoa Debrey. I would love this. I would just love to talk to her.

00:45:49.260 I don't think this is a possibility, and I'm certainly not entitled to her time and attention, but I like her as a person because her interviews are so charming and she seems really fun.

00:45:56.640 But as a person, I'm not entitled to her time.

00:45:59.200 I think the trick here is that, you know, you have a lot of people talking about book boyfriends and people talking about their book boyfriends, the characters that they love and, you know, the jokes about their reading.

00:46:08.420 It's a different thing when there's people in those roles.

00:46:11.120 A book boyfriend does not have to worry about security and whether his family and his parents are safe.

00:46:16.920 you know an actor is creating emotions based on the work assigned to them and they're doing that

00:46:27.320 in an environment where there's ample information about them if you don't want to go spelunking in

00:46:32.360 their online history because we've all been online for so long and they're young they've been online

00:46:35.900 the whole time this is a problem outside of of of the show as well like uh earlier last year

00:46:42.620 alex wenberg from the seattle kraken hockey team was being sexually harassed by a book talk creator

00:46:48.520 and the kraken were engaging with her online which did not help and his wife had to make a statement

00:46:53.280 and say basically i'm paraphrasing but like i don't like going to a hockey game and wondering

00:46:57.620 if someone um someone's going to come up to me and they're a hockey fan or if they want to tell

00:47:01.640 me about how they masturbate wearing my husband's jersey and i'm like you know what fair very fair

00:47:06.380 thing to worry. Fair point. Fair point. The fixation and the fetishization is a word I never 0.97

00:47:14.900 say. Well, that is happening to the actors genuinely worries me because this is the power

00:47:21.040 of romance, right? It traffics directly in emotions. It wants you to feel things and sometimes

00:47:25.520 even wants you to have pants feelings like romance sometimes wants to turn you on. And that's really

00:47:29.740 powerful. But I think there are a lot of people for whom the emotional experience of having those

00:47:35.500 feelings gets attached to the creator that they see as the creator. Sometimes it's the author who

00:47:41.720 gets the stalking and sometimes it's the it's the actor. And unfortunately, and I know you've

00:47:46.720 talked about this, there are still people who believe that feminism means it's our turn to

00:47:53.200 sexually harass people and behave in predatory fashion. And that's really not the case. 0.72

00:47:59.140 And it's deeply uncomfortable. That's not how that works. But I genuinely worry about them

00:48:04.960 becoming target famous like they're not gonna be able to go to target for a while no they can't no

00:48:09.820 they can't go to target for a long time i don't think yeah and i mean runner story needs lip balm

00:48:14.900 for those lips bless his heart you know i hope he gets bless his little heart i know i know i know

00:48:19.900 yeah no i mean it's fascinating and i mean also as someone who has watched the toxic aspects of

00:48:24.700 what happens to young people and young adults when they become extraordinarily famous who's

00:48:30.520 written about this for a long time i just i do hope they're careful with themselves and also

00:48:35.880 i will say this as as a middle-aged woman who i'm old enough to be both of their mothers uh i mean

00:48:42.600 i would have been a teen uh teen mom but still um they're also really hot and i hope they take

00:48:49.620 care of themselves because i can't stop the emotional labor here no i i hope that i mean

00:48:54.380 both of them signed with it i think they both signed with caa i don't know i think so i think

00:48:59.300 so yeah yeah which is an agency creative creative artists artists agency yeah exactly when i saw

00:49:04.420 that i went oh good because i don't know if they or anyone involved in the production expected this

00:49:09.560 level of attention and spotlight and all of the negative things that come with that and i'm like

00:49:15.020 okay if you sign with an agency i'm hoping that they are helping you uh protect yourself and set

00:49:19.640 up boundaries so that you don't feel like this fame is entirely extractive and i also i want to

00:49:26.260 point something out the people who engage in this behavior of stalking celebrities and going to

00:49:32.740 games and you know building a whole social media presence out of stalking and commenting on

00:49:37.240 celebrity these are women who are our age these are not teenagers these are women who are adults

00:49:42.680 i find that deeply disturbing so disturbing so they have disposable income and this is this is

00:49:50.320 the hobby and that makes me very sad yeah yeah and i don't know how to fix it either i wish i

00:49:55.760 had the answer of how to fix it and I and I don't I really don't girl you can't you can't fix it

00:50:00.180 sorry I'm sorry I know yeah yeah can I say just one delicious thing that I love thinking please do

00:50:07.160 please do last year the NHL would not let players wear pride jerseys to practice not even the game

00:50:16.440 just practice go out there and do those cool stretches they were forbidding teams were saying

00:50:21.320 no, we're not doing pride jerseys. And now they have new fans out the wazoo because of this like

00:50:27.880 incredible, tender, sexy love story between hockey players. And I just, I don't know if I can

00:50:33.260 communicate how badly I want to be in the meeting where all of the people who made the decision

00:50:37.160 about the pride jerseys are all now sitting at a table looking at each other. We're like, okay,

00:50:41.200 well, so what are we going to do? What do we do now? What are we going to do? And I just want to

00:50:46.860 see their discomfort. I would like to bottle it actually. I could make a candle. I could do a

00:50:51.020 whole line you know we have my new trad wife tears candle which is magical um i want to make a candle 0.64

00:50:56.580 a candle called male discomfort yes and and you know the men who are fragile interpret that

00:51:03.480 discomfort as injustice towards them and i'm like yeah every time every time and i'm like what do

00:51:10.040 you look at what you look how look at you are just one big empty net look at your empty net

00:51:14.380 look at your empty net

00:51:16.540 I could talk to you forever

00:51:18.120 forever about things

00:51:20.420 I really could I could talk to you forever

00:51:22.300 sadly I do have to go because my computer is also

00:51:24.660 going to die

00:51:25.180 yeah and one of my kids stole my charger and I don't

00:51:28.740 know which kid it was and I don't know where it is

00:51:30.420 but I adore you and will you

00:51:32.720 tell everyone where they can find everything

00:51:34.840 brilliant that you write

00:51:35.920 I love talking to you too

00:51:38.260 you can find me at smartbitchestrashybooks.com

00:51:40.780 you can find smart podcast

00:51:42.480 Trashy Books, wherever you find your tasty shows. We just released episode 700 with a video episode

00:51:48.840 as well. And you can find me on social media at smart bitches. I love it so much. I love it. You 1.00

00:51:55.400 are the best. Thank you so much for coming on. Oh, it was my absolute pleasure. Thank you. Thank

00:52:00.520 you. Thank you for having me on to talk about this.

00:52:12.480 Thank you.

00:52:42.480 Thank you.

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Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - January 20, 2026

The Heated Rivalry Episode

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Transcript